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The Weather Machine: How We See Into the Future
‘Revelatory … convey[s] the technical brilliance and political significance of an achievement that hides in plain sight’
Telegraph
From satellites circling the Earth, to weather stations far out in the ocean, through some of the most ingenious minds and advanced algorithms at work today - In this gripping investigation, Andrew Blum takes us on a global journey. Our destination: the simulated models weather scientists have constructed of our planet, which spin faster than time, turning chaos into prediction, offering glimpses of our future with eerie precision.
This collaborative invention spans the Earth and relies on continuous co-operation between all nations – a triumph of human ingenuity and diplomacy we too often shrug off as a tool for choosing the right footwear each morning. But in this new era of extreme weather, we may come to rely on its maintenance and survival for our own.
Telegraph
From satellites circling the Earth, to weather stations far out in the ocean, through some of the most ingenious minds and advanced algorithms at work today - In this gripping investigation, Andrew Blum takes us on a global journey. Our destination: the simulated models weather scientists have constructed of our planet, which spin faster than time, turning chaos into prediction, offering glimpses of our future with eerie precision.
This collaborative invention spans the Earth and relies on continuous co-operation between all nations – a triumph of human ingenuity and diplomacy we too often shrug off as a tool for choosing the right footwear each morning. But in this new era of extreme weather, we may come to rely on its maintenance and survival for our own.
- GenresScienceNonfiction
224 pages, Paperback
Published May 7, 2020
1 person is currently reading
31 people want to read
About the author
Andrew Blum
11 books4 followersAndrew Blum is a journalist and the author of Tubes: A Journey to the Center of the Internet, the first book-length look at the physical heart of the Internet itself.
Tubes was first published in June 2012 by Ecco/Harpercollins in the US and Viking/Penguin in the UK. It was a national bestseller, and met with wide acclaim from The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Boston Globe, Salon, The Guardian, The Economist, The Independent, Kirkus Reviews, Bookforum, Scientific American, New Scientist, Brain Pickings, Ars Technica, Science News and many others. Blum discussed Tubes with Terry Gross on NPR’s Fresh Air; BBC 4 presented it as a “Book of the Week”; and Blum spoke about his research on the stages of TED Global and the London School of Economics, among dozens of other venues. Design Observer named Tubes its 2012 “Book of the Year,” and London’s Independent called it “The year’s most stimulating and original ‘travel’ book.” When the Edward Snowden/NSA revelations made the Internet’s infrastructure a vital diplomatic question, journalists from Washington to London to Frankfurt to São Paulo relied on Tubes as a crucial reference. It has been translated into nine languages.
Blum is currently at work on a new book about the global machinery of weather observation and prediction, to be published in 2016 by Ecco/Harpercollins in the US and Knaus in Germany, and The Bodley Head in the UK.
In addition to the Internet, Blum writes about infrastructure, architecture, design, technology, urbanism, art, and travel. Since 1999, his articles and essays have appeared in Metropolis (where he is a contributing editor), Vanity Fair, Wired, The New York Times, The New Yorker, Bloomberg Business Week, Popular Science, Gizmodo, The Atlantic Online, Architectural Record, Slate, and many more publications. He has degrees in literature from Amherst College and in human geography from the University of Toronto, and lives in his native New York City.
Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
Tubes was first published in June 2012 by Ecco/Harpercollins in the US and Viking/Penguin in the UK. It was a national bestseller, and met with wide acclaim from The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Boston Globe, Salon, The Guardian, The Economist, The Independent, Kirkus Reviews, Bookforum, Scientific American, New Scientist, Brain Pickings, Ars Technica, Science News and many others. Blum discussed Tubes with Terry Gross on NPR’s Fresh Air; BBC 4 presented it as a “Book of the Week”; and Blum spoke about his research on the stages of TED Global and the London School of Economics, among dozens of other venues. Design Observer named Tubes its 2012 “Book of the Year,” and London’s Independent called it “The year’s most stimulating and original ‘travel’ book.” When the Edward Snowden/NSA revelations made the Internet’s infrastructure a vital diplomatic question, journalists from Washington to London to Frankfurt to São Paulo relied on Tubes as a crucial reference. It has been translated into nine languages.
Blum is currently at work on a new book about the global machinery of weather observation and prediction, to be published in 2016 by Ecco/Harpercollins in the US and Knaus in Germany, and The Bodley Head in the UK.
In addition to the Internet, Blum writes about infrastructure, architecture, design, technology, urbanism, art, and travel. Since 1999, his articles and essays have appeared in Metropolis (where he is a contributing editor), Vanity Fair, Wired, The New York Times, The New Yorker, Bloomberg Business Week, Popular Science, Gizmodo, The Atlantic Online, Architectural Record, Slate, and many more publications. He has degrees in literature from Amherst College and in human geography from the University of Toronto, and lives in his native New York City.
Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
July 30, 2023
As someone who has made forecasts for a living a fascinating look into a different forecasting area’s history with good discussions of how forecasts improve and how forecasting is changing with increasing computing power and dramatic increases in data.
Displaying 1 of 1 review